The Disruption Of Higher Education And America's New Manufacturing Industry - Part 1

Over the past two decades, Internet-based technologies have disrupted many industries that previously relied on a physical presence for their business. Local bookstores, retail shops, and even large financial exchanges have moved from physical buildings to a digital presence. In each case, the result has been more convenience, increased transparency, and greater availability of product to more people and at a lower cost. For these same benefits, higher education is the next industry that should be similarly disrupted.

As currently constructed, a college education with high and continually increasing costs, high student loan debt, and an obligation to be on campus for four years is not competitively sustainable. Very soon, I believe there will not be a need to spend four years on a college campus in order to obtain a high paying job or begin a rewarding career. Instead, the focus will shift to acquiring the necessary skills required to begin rewarding careers. In particular, the skills necessary for the most in-demand and highest paying job of our time in software development can be obtained without a college degree, and perhaps more importantly, in much less time and at a fraction of the cost of a four-year degree.

In this series of posts, I will cover the following topics:

The rising costs of college and student loan debt

The demand for workers in the technology industry particularly software engineering are in high demand and are high paying; This demand is expected to continue to increase over time.

It is possible to obtain the skills necessary to be successful in these high paying software development jobs in one to two years, and without the high cost of attending college

The traits that make a good software developer, and how someone can best prepare themselves for a job in the software development industry today

The emergence and role of Coding Boot Camps

The best long term answer: Teaching software development in high school

The increasing college costs and high student loan debt

College tuition is continuously increasing. According toForbes, in 2017, private colleges planned to raise tuition at a rate that's almost double the current inflation rate. Massachusetts, for example, recently announced that tuition at their public universities will increase by three percent this fall. That follows five percent or higher increases the past two previous years. In the last twenty years, tuition has increased more than one hundred percent at public four-year institutions and more than 60 percent at private four-year institutions after adjusting for inflation. During that same period of time, family income has increased less than 20 percent. As a result, student loan debt has skyrocketed. In 2016, the average debt per college student was just over$37,000. In total, Americans owe over 1.4 trillion in student loan debt - a number that’s larger than the annual GDP of Russia, Australia, and Spain. Clearly, the current model is broken and unsustainable.

The demand for software developers

You often hear that there is a shortage of jobs in the labor market, and that you must have a college degree today to get those jobs thatareavailable. In fact, there are hundreds of thousands of high paying jobs just in the computer software industry alone. By some estimates, there are currentlyover 500,000 computer software developer job openingsin the United States today, and there will be over 20 million jobs in software- and technology-related jobs in the next 20 years. Not only are there many available jobs, they are very high paying jobs. One of the highest paying college majors today with a four-year degree is software engineer - with graduates making about $70,000 on average right out of college. In fact,five of the top 20highest paying majors out of college with a four-year degree are computer software related. In 2016, according toGlassdoor, eleven of the highest paying jobs in the US were tech jobs. More to the point, seven of the those were software-related tech jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts themedian salary for software developers at over $100,000.

This is not just a short-term need as the demand for software developers is expected to grow about17 percent per year through the year 2024. The need for web developers alone is projected to grow by 27 percent over that same period. The need for talent in this space is going to last for some time. According toComputer Science Zone, there will be 1 million more computing jobs than employees to fill them in the next 10 years.

I strongly believe, based on my own experience in this field, that students with the right aptitude and dedication, can learn the skills needed for these software based jobs in one year to two years, and at a much lower cost than required for a four-year college degree.

I'm not saying that students should avoid four year colleges. There are many benefits to attending college, and if someone can afford it, and thinks its their best path, then I'm all for it. If however a student is challenged to pay for college, and their primary goal is to get the skills that will set them on their way to a rewarding career, then there are other ways to achieve this goal.

As Chief Technology Officer of the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Edwin Marcial grew the company from a six person start-up to a 22 billion dollar market capitalization within 15 years. It was my technical vision and design of an Internet based commodity trading system th...